May 3, 2019

"This is not only a religious problem... It is a social and educational disaster for secular Poland and must be condemned as such."

Paris

In a letter to the Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels expressed "shock to learn from our Polish members of Bishop Andrzej Jez's antisemitic tirade on Easter Thursday to a packed audience of clergy in Tarnow Cathedral."

The letter noted that Bishop Jez, "quoting from a 1937 publication claimed, reportedly, to be a Jewish source, 'Our national enemy is the Catholic Church. We must start a fight between Christian denominations...begin a pitiless all out fight against Catholic priests....Slander then with smears and hatred...take over the schooling system, the Christian religion must disappear from the curriculum...' "

Samuels added, "though the 1937 publication attributed the above Protocol to a 'Zionist Congress' in Lvov, the Bishop apparently covered himself in arguing:- 'This statement was made in a Congress of a certain nation, I cannot say which, as I would be hounded from all sides", continuing, "this sermon, apparently also included allegations by Jews about the scandals in priests' lives in the context of the sexual abuse affair in the Church."

The Centre charged the Minister, "it is scandalous that these 'pre-Nostra Aetate efforts to cleanse antisemitism from the liturgy' were then posted on the Diocesan website and Youtube channel."

Samuels argued, "this is not a religious problem, this is a social and educational disaster for secular Poland and must be condemned as such."

The Centre urged the Minister, "to publicly condemn this travesty and take the appropriate measures to penalize this so-called bishop on purely secular grounds."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).